Sunday 4/19 Entry

Hiroshi Sugimoto

In his movie theatre series and his seascape series, Sugimoto's vast interiors and exteriors are void of human beings. In Seascapes, water and sky tend to effortlessly merge into each other, taking back the earth. In his movie theater series, Sugimoto captures an entire film in one shot. The screen becomes bright white, leaving no telltale evidence of what happened or even what movie it was. The only one who knows for sure is the photographer.

His images become strangely surreal. They look as if they were created in some other manner than simply documenting a scene. And yet, you know without a doubt, but without proof, that these images are authentic and that these scenes existed somewhere and at some point.

Why we have so much faith in Sugimoto's credibility, I'm not exactly sure. Is it the images themselves, or do we simply believe they are true because they look like they could be and Sugimoto himself has said that they are? Whatever the reason, this trust is a valuable tool; one that, hopefully, my work can also take advantage of.

http://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/sugimoto/index.html
http://www.artnet.com/artist/16261/hiroshi-sugimoto.html
http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2008-11-06/